Chart of the Day: The Biggest Crypto Catalyst Yet

Unless you haven’t been paying attention at all, you probably know that cryptocurrencies have been on a tear in 2017. In fact, the entire cryptocurrency market has grown by 2,605% this year.

What you may not know is that half of this growth came in just the last month, as you can see from the chart below.

There were several catalysts for the massive rise in cryptos throughout 2017… but excitement surrounding the CBOE’s Bitcoin futures exchange is largely responsible for the massive spike higher since November.

The CBOE is the world’s largest options exchange. It began offering Bitcoin futures on December 10… and $118 billion has flowed into the cryptocurrency market since. Much of this likely came from hedge funds buying cryptos for the first time.

You see, many hedge funds will only invest in a market where they can take both sides of the trade to hedge risk… which is what futures contracts allow them to do. They can take a net long position… but limit downside risk with a smaller short position in case Bitcoin falls in price.

This “hedge” allows hedge funds to pour money into cryptocurrencies… and the cryptocurrency market has grown by 30% in the last three days alone.

And it’s just beginning… the CME Group is launching its Bitcoin futures exchange on December 18.

With hedge funds ready to pour in, cryptocurrency growth in 2018 could be even more explosive…

—Joe Withrow

Reader Mailbag

I am a huge believer in renewable energy and Electric Vehicles, and it’s not just because I think climate change is a real issue. Whilst it’s clear that both these technologies are reaching a point where they are economically competitive with fossil fuels, I also see a huge synergy between the two, which appears to have been overlooked. The biggest problem with renewable energy is clearly that it doesn’t always appear at the time we need it.

On the other hand, the largest part of the cost of electric vehicles is the expensive batteries required to store enormous amounts of electricity for the rare occasion when the maximum range is required. With the assistance of a little artificial intelligence, these could work together to solve both problems. If all idle electric vehicles were connected to the grid and their batteries were available to store or discharge electricity as needed, it’s obvious that both technologies would be even more viable than they already are.